Columbia Triathlon 2014: Aquabike (minus the Aqua)

 Yesterday morning, I participated in the 31st Columbia Triathlon, winning the Aquabike category.  Since I am restricted from running, I was pleased to discover when I signed up in the fall that they had added Aquabike category (in the past I have always done relays), but that ended up being just the tip of the iceberg as far as changes.  The Columbia Triathlon Association ended up folding, with the race looking like it might even be cancelled until just a few weeks ago the Ulman Cancer Foundation took over the race.  Then a few days before race day, they cancelled the swim for the first time ever for this race due to unsafe water conditions; I gather that the huge amounts of rain created high toxin levels in the water.  This turned the race into a bike/run for most of the participants and just a bike for the Aquabike division.  While that suited my training just fine, like everyone I was a bit sad not to swim.

 Training

As far as race preparation, I have focused almost exclusively on cycling for the past year, including significantly more total miles and more road racing.  Up until about 6 weeks ago, I hadn't been in the pool for a workout since racing last summer.  While the first couple of masters swim practices were painful and slow, I was surprised how quickly I was able to ramp up my swim speed with very little volume.  I was certainly a bit scared going into the race that my ~10 total swim practices were going to leave me hurting, but was also eager to see if I could be within a couple minutes of my previous times.  For the bike portion, I was confident that my higher volume of training would payoff and thought I might even be faster overall for the bike focus.  Of course once the swim was cancelled this seemed like a genius move.

Race Morning/Setup

The forecast for the day was colder than normal for this race at high 40s for the start and low 50s for the race itself.  With a swim, that would normally mean some hand wringing about what to wear on the bike since putting on clothes in transition is slow, especially when wet.  Without a swim, it was easy, just pile on as much as you need ahead of time; I went with a full sleeve skinsuit and leg warmers for full coverage.  The lack of swim also meant a simpler race morning setup.  I woke up, drove over to the race with a small bag containing my helmet, bike pump, shoes and some drinks and was pretty much good to go.  After checking over my bike, pumping up tires, etc, I left the transition area to wait for the race to start.  The plan for the race start was a "time trial" start where competitors ran two at a time from what would have been the swim exit to transition and then started the bike.  I cleverly decided that rather than sit around for an hour in my bike gear, I would wear light pants and a jacket and put them in a bag right before starting.  I then ran in with my bag held like a football, put it down in transition, grabbed my bike and went.

 T1: 100m dash

Perhaps for everyone else it was a "dash".  For me, given my injury history, and the fact that I was running in my cycling shoes, it was a very light jog.  I'm not sure how often I'll get to run with an aero helmet, cycling shoes and a bag of clothes, but it went off without a hitch.  I had intentionally lined up as the last person in my wave, hoping to get a better idea of where my fellow competitors were as I hopefully passed them.

 Bike Leg

In a normal race, this is the point at which I complain about how hard it is to do a flying mount, get my feet into shoes while riding, get over feeling crappy from finishing this swim, etc.  None of that applied here.  This was just a bike ride.  The only struggle was that for some reason my power meter wasn't picking up, so I was going to have to pace myself without (which is fine) and frustratingly not be able to look back at the numbers later.

I had relatively high hopes for doing a fast time.  I was in good bike shape and I didn't swim right before, so I figured I should do a best time (my previous best was about 1:02).  As my home course, I am very familiar with the ride and generally divide the course into roughly equal thirds.  There is a slightly net uphill starting third, a "lollipop" loop third and then the finishing slightly net downhill return third that reverses the first third.  My PR for the lollipop is ~20 minutes and the return third is also ~20 minutes.  The first third felt a bit slow; the forecast had there being a head wind for that section and it felt that way.  I got to the lollipop in 21:46, which was a minute or two slower than I was hoping for, but I thought with a good lollipop section and hopefully a tail wind on the return I might still break 1:02.  The lollipop section went ok, but also not as fast as I was hoping at 20:38; my legs didn't really have much "pop" and even though it is a loop I don't remember having a tail wind.  Still, I was vaguely hoping that if there was a whipping tail wind on the way back I had a chance.  I could tell that wasn't going to happen when going down the usually fast section the wind didn't seem to be helping much.  Looking at the post race weather, it seems to have picked up a bit and changed directions to more of a cross wind for the return leg instead of a tail wind.  I still tried to give it my all and ended up doing the last section in 20:09, for a total time of just over 1:02:33 by my watch.

When I got back to transition, it was empty of bikes in my section, making it pretty clear that I had won.  The relay teams were racked in the same area, so I actually ended up chatting with my former running teammate from the 2013 HalfFull relay that we won.  

Post Race

After finishing up, I met up with my family and we went over to the finish line to return my timing chip, collect a finisher medal and collect some food for my kids.  They had a nice time eating chips and cookies courtesy of the race organizers and we considered waiting for the awards. 

Who so Blue?

After the race, I had a bit of the blues, which seems strange for a race that I won.  Friends I saw later asked how the race went, and I basically told them "Fine".  I wasn't sure why I felt off, but I have some theories.  Certainly not swimming was a bit sad.  This was also the first year at Columbia where I didn't improve on my previous times.  I think I had setup expectations for myself that I would be faster.  I can look back and make some plausible excuses.  The conditions were cold, windy, with a non-favorable change in wind direction.  The nerd in me can calculate that higher air density in the cold  plus the wind slow you down by a couple of minutes vs. favorable conditions in a time trial.  Still, those feel like lame excuses.  Perhaps if my power meter had been working I would be able to get some satisfaction in achieving my target power numbers, but because it didn't work I have no idea.  In most races, you can say you just race the conditions of the day and try to beat whoever shows up, but realistically in this race the other racers in my division were not serious cyclists, so I was just racing the clock and my own goals.  Guess its time to move on and get some new goals...

Carl Dolan 2014

Today was the 21st Annual Carl Dolan Memorial/Howard County Library Spring Classic where I raced twice; once in the Cat 5 race at 8:45am and then again in the combined Cat 4/5 race at 2:15pm.  I ended up getting 7th place in the Cat 5 race and 1st place in the Cat 4/5 race.

Cat 5 (Strava)

I sorted out the issues I had with my bike mounted camera, so I have footage from both races.

The Cat 5 race was largely uneventful for the first 8 of 9 laps.  While I figured I probably had a shot in a mass sprint finish, I wanted to see if I could win on a solo flyer on the last lap and decided I would give that a try in this race and try my hand at the sprint in the afternoon race.  So I positioned myself to take off soon after crossing the finish line starting the final lap.  I jumped hard and got a nice gap with no one on my wheel.  I then worked to try to keep a strong steady effort, periodically checking behind to see how the chase was going.  My hope was that the field might be a bit slow to react and that if I could put in one good fast lap that might be enough.  Unfortunately, that was not going to happen.  A couple short minutes in to my break, I get caught by two guys right at the corner before the long finishing straight.  I was told later that at least a couple riders in the field recognized me from a previous race and pushed the pace to chase me down.  As I got joined, I managed to hang on to the two guys passing me.  At that point I was figuring I was done, I had spent a big effort trying a break.  I wasn't quite going to give up though and managed to hang on to a few other wheels as our group of three got passed and even found myself in third place with about 100 meters to go.  I started to try to make an effort to go by and then gave up as I saw we were being passed on both sides.  I ended up in 7th place and a bit frustrated.  I knew that a solo break had a low chance of success, but still was a little disappointed.  One positive was that my wife and kids came to the race and managed to take a few photos:

Cat 4/5 (Strava)

After going home, resting a bit, having lunch and watching my 9 yr old's soccer game, I returned to race in the afternoon.  I was excited to have two teammates doing the same afternoon race, Shannon and Ryan.  By the afternoon the wind had picked up quite a lot, with a strong head wind right into the finishing straight.  We discussed strategy a little, mostly concluding that breaks didn't seem to be working that day and that we were likely to end up in a mass sprint finish.

Ryan and Shannon after the race

The race proceeded mostly as expected, with things bogging down heavily on each lap as we headed into the wind on the finishing straight.  On a couple of laps it seemed like we were crawling along at 10 mph and barely working because no one wanted to be in front working while heading into the wind.  It may have been this, or some other aspect of the race that I didn't quite pick up on, but we seemed to keep getting splinter groups of 5-10 riders going off the front.  None of those groups really seemed to be working that hard and most of the time we pulled them back without any effort from me or my teammates.  

By lap 9 of 10, there was a group of about 8-10 that seemed to have a gap bigger than I was comfortable with.  My teammates and a few other teams worked together to start trying to bring the gap down.  At about the halfway point, right as I was about to take my turn at the front and pull, my teammate Ryan comes by hard and says "Joe, lets go!".  Ryan and I managed to bridge up to the front group right after the one turn, right before the finishing straight.  I was a bit surprised that no one else in our chase came with us; apparently we accidentally caught Shannon a bit out after he had just finished a pull at the front.  

As we passed the finish line for the final lap, I peeled off a bit to check out our group and confirmed that we had a nice gap that we should be able to hold and the rough size of the group.  This was a lesson I learned from a race last weekend where I wasn't nearly as aware of a breakaway size and how big a gap the group had and ended up working too hard.  After checking things out, I urged our group to work together, took a pull or two and then tried to sit in the back and rest a bit.  By the final corner, I was happy to find myself at the back of the pack right behind Ryan who I was telling to be "patient".  From my experience in the earlier race and previous years at this race, I knew it was very easy to go hard to early, blow up and get passed before the finish.  As we started up the finishing straight, it seemed slower than I thought we would go; I assume that no one wanted to be the one pulling into the wind.  As we got to about 250 meters, I remembered the advice of a willy old road racer who told me that when the group slows down, you should go.  So I jumped as hard as I could at 250 meters, got a pretty quick gap and was a bit stunned to find myself alone.  I wasn't 100% sure there wasn't someone with me, so I pushed hard to the finish and came across first.  My teammate Ryan took fourth overall and was the 2nd Cat 5 racer (the two races were scored separately).  As we were doing a cool down lap, we came across the bad news of the day, seeing a few riders getting cleaned up after crashing and realized that our teammate Shannon had been involved in the crash.  As crashes go, this one didn't seem terrible, but it is never fun to hit pavement and Shannon came away with some fresh battle wounds.

For some reason my camera split the race into two files which I didn't bother to join when I uploaded them.  The second video conveniently captures most of the last lap, which was the most interesting part.

Edits:

Looks like a fellow racer caught some good footage of the end of the Cat 5 race:

http://youtu.be/lEBSHOveOmY?t=4m

Black Hill Circuit Race 2014

Sunday morning I did two races at the Black Hill Circuit race, finishing 1st in the Cat 5 race and 6th in the Cat 4/5 race.  The course is a simple 1.4 mile loop crit, with one shortish climb per lap that also serves as the finish line about 3/4 of the way up the climb.  The weather was not horrible, but certainly not ideal, around 40 degrees with a bit of wind.  At least all the snow was gone and the course was clean of debris and pothole free.

After registration and a bit of warm-up doing a couple reverse laps of the course, I made my way to the starting area for the Cat 5 race at 9:30 and lined up near the back of the group, figuring there would be plenty of time to work my way up in the field.  The race starts off with the one hill, which we took at a relatively relaxed pace.  I was planning on trying to mostly "sit in" for this race, but grew a bit impatient with what seemed like a slowish pace and a twitchy pack.  By the end of the first lap as we climbed the hill again, I had worked to the front and there seemed to be a small group of about six that had a little gap.  I went to the front, took a longish pull, and tried to encourage the group to work together, thinking that a break of six had a good chance to stay away in the short 10 mile race.  Sadly, that was not to be as the rest of the group wasn't working together and we were quickly re-caught toward the end of the next lap.  On the very next time up the hill, me and one of the other guys from the six got a pretty good gap and went for it.  He and I worked quite well together for the next two laps, although I had to wait for him a little on the climb and encourage him to keep at it.  The next time up the hill (4th overall?) I told him I would just do a steady tempo and to try to hold on.  By mid hill, he was struggling and one other rider (a young guy) had bridged across, so I ended up with a new teammate.  The new young guy also managed to work well with me over the next couple of laps, and by the bell lap the crowd was telling us we had a gap that would stick.  On the final downhill approaching the finishing climb I let my new friend lead me out and at 200 meters I gave it everything I had, came around him with a quick gap and held it to the finish.  The rest of the field was probably about 15-20 second back at the end.

The first race was short, only 10 miles and about 25 minutes, but I had been in a two man break for the majority of the race and was definitely feeling it a bit.  The second race wasn't going to start for about another hour and a half, so I had time to kill.  Apart from trying to avoid the cold (I was getting really chilly), the one funny thing that happened was that the Cat 5 preliminary results came out and I wasn't on the result at all.  I ended up having to go protest at the finish line, where they all agreed that I had clearly one and were mystified as to why I wasn't on the result and quickly rectified the situation.

The Cat 4/5 race was notably less eventful for me.  I stayed with my plan to sit in the pack.  In fact, I was so far back initially that I didn't even realize that there was a break (I gather one guy) or how many people were in the break.  By the time I had worked my way toward the front, we were 30 second down and the group was working pretty poorly at bringing the break back.  I tried a few times to do some pulls at the front, even ending up solo in no mans land for 1/4 lap or so before giving up on bridging and going back to hiding.  By the final lap it was clear the break had it, so I was just trying to get in the front group of a dozen or so for the sprint.  I didn't end up positions great, getting slightly boxed in on the sprint, but was able to pass a number of fading guys to end up in really close for 5th/6th, just getting clipped by a nose at the line.  After the race, some guys were discussing that the winner was a super strong cyclocross guy just getting into road who went solo and had some teammates doing a good job "blocking" at the front of the pack as he got away.

Overall a fun day of racing and really cool to actually be part of a winning break.  And also importantly getting a couple more starts in my journey out of being Cat 5 (races 4 and 5, so just 5 more to go).

Photos, Video?

While I had my camera on my bike, something seems to have gone wrong (battery not charged?), so I have no cool media of my own.  On the plus side, technology abounds and plenty of other people had cameras and video.  I can't use these photos without paying, but there are some really nice still shots at Wheeltastic Photo.

The guy who started the break in the Cat 5 race had a camera and forwarded me his video on youtube.  Given that we were in a two man break for a couple laps, he naturally has a lot of footage of my butt.  We start trying to go hard with the small group I mentioned at about 5 minute mark, start our two man break the next lap at about 8 minutes in and are together till about the 16 minute mark when you can see I join up with the guy who bridged.

http://youtu.be/5mjq2ahhSK0?t=5m

I also found this link from the Cat 4/5 race showing the final lap and giving a pretty good shot of how I handled (or mis-handled) the sprint as the cameraman seemed to be mostly following me near the end.

http://vimeo.com/89879010

Time Trial or Triathlon Wheels

A number of friends have asked me at various times to make wheel recommendations or explain some of what I know about wheels.  I thought it was worth writing a little blog post to explain my perspective.  I'm only an "expert" from the standpoint that I've spent a significant amount of time researching and collecting what others have written, but that sort of collecting of information can still prove useful. So here goes...

First Things First

Apart from looking cool, the reason people buy high end wheels is to go faster.  It is worth noting that an expensive set of wheels may be one of the worst bangs-for-the-buck that you can do to get faster when doing individual events like a TT or triathlon bike leg.  It is a bit of a false dichotomy to say don't get race wheels until you do "X", because you can of course get race wheels and do "X" and get faster than just doing "X".  If you are resource constrained and want to know where to focus your time/energy/money first, other things make more sense.  You can Google various bang for the buck aerodynamic pages, but my rough breakdown is:

1. Position matters most: low, narrow and compact in front is generally going to be best (although not for everyone).  Having a good fitter and/or playing with your position with a camera available helps.
2. Clothes.  Even if you are in a skinsuit or trisuit, there can be a big difference between brands.
3. Fast tires (low Crr) and latex tubes.
4. Aero helmet.  Needs to fit well with your position.
5. Declutter: Don't have a million things hanging off your bike.  Hide your cabling.
6. Wheels: not great bang for the buck, but definitely helpful.  
7. Frame: not easily (or cheaply) changed, but modern super bikes can help drop some drag

"Free Speed"

Some people refer to things like race wheels as "free speed", which others may find ironic based on price tags of >$2500 for "free speed".  My perspective is that good up-front investment really does make these close to "free" compared to my primary cycling performance investment, my time.  In particular, a good set of wheels is a non-recurring effort investment that holds some of its value (resale) and pays off in a faster time in every race where I use them.  My training in contrast requires continual up keep and investment.  If I want to be 1 mph faster in a TT, I might need to invest an extra 2-4 hours a week training.  If I stop training for a little while, that investment goes away and I need to start over again.  In comparison, the wheels start to seem like a bargain and start to seem almost "free".  Of course, you don't need to spend $2500 for wheels to get a lot faster, there are some options that cost far below that and will get you 99% of the same benefit.

What Matters for Wheels

As far as a set of TT/Tri race wheels go, here is a pretty complete list of what properties about the wheels might matter to you when selecting wheels. 

1. Aerodynamics: How much drag do you save?
2. Handling: Is it scary in the wind?
3. Braking: Can I still stop on a dime?
4. Maintainability: Is changing the tire a pain?
5. Durability: Will they break when I go over a bump?
6. Tire choice: Can I find fast/cheap tires?
7. Cost/resale/availability: How much $, can I resell, can I actually find what I want?
8. Weight: For TT/Tri this doesn't matter, but lightweight gives some roadie cred.
9. Looks: Almost all look cool, some look super cool.

The thing that makes wheel selection a complex problem is that different people are going to weight the importance of each of the above factors differently and different wheels may meet different parts of those goals.   For example, lets look at a few different wheel design properties.

Wide vs. narrow

One of the recent trends in wheel design is wider "U-shaped" rims as opposed to older "V-shaped" narrow rims.  You can go read the marketing for Zipp's Firecrest design or Hed's SCT to see what the claimed advantages are, but they largely boil down to better handling and better aerodynamics with wider tires (e.g. Conti GP4000s 23mm).  From the consumer's perspective, the downside is that these are still the new hot thing and thus come at a cost premium.  The older designs are not much slower with the right tires and can be had at a significant bargain.

Deep vs. shallow

Deeper rim wheels, all other things equal, are faster.  Deeper rim wheels, all other things equal, are less stable and harder to handle in crosswinds.  There is also significantly diminishing returns as wheels get deeper.  The difference between a Hed6 and a Hed9 or a Zipp 404 and Zipp 808 are there, but they are quite small.  Ironically, it is often in higher yaw (e.g. higher crosswind) situations where the deeper wheels are faster, which are exactly the conditions in which they are more sketchy.  Whether this matters is very dependent on an individual rider and their comfort with different riding situations.  I found that my Hed trispokes were just fine for me in quite windy conditions even though they are known as pretty twitchy wheels.  One thing you can do to make this easier is to always use a deeper wheel in back (e.g. a disc) than front.  That may be counter-intuitive, but it actually provides more stable handling.  An Hed9+disc will be both faster and more stable than a pair of Hed9s.  A Hed6/9 will be more stable than a pair of Hed9s.  If you are on the more uncomfortable side, investing in the more recent "wide" rims discussed above may be worth the extra money.

Carbon vs. aluminum rim

This is one of those places that Zipp and Hed for example made different decisions.  Your main Zipp race wheels are structural carbon with carbon rims.  Hed's clincher offering is a carbon fairing over an aluminum rim (their tubular is all carbon).  The carbon has some advantages in terms of weight and perhaps bling (both of which we mentioned doesn't actually matter for TT/Tri), otherwise it is a bit annoying.  It requires special brake pads, so if you swap wheels you have to swap pads.  While manufacturers have worked hard on improving the braking for carbon rims, they still don't behave as nicely and reliably as aluminum.  I personally have ridden carbon rims (and plan to ride them on my road bike), so I wouldn't be scared off by a good deal on wheels with a carbon rim, but prefer the aluminum Hed type of design.

Tubular vs. clincher

There are long standing debates about the relative merits of tubular vs clincher wheels, but I think it is fairly clear that clinchers have won.  Clinchers are far easier to deal with; a flat can be changed with a simple tube instead of gluing an entire new tire ($$$).  Tubulars are generally lighter, but I'll reiterate that doesn't matter.  They are aerodynamically equivalent and you can find equally fast tires for both, in fact finding good clincher tires is generally a bit easier and cheaper.  With tubulars you have to be careful that you buy one with latex tubes which manufacturers often don't make easy to decode.  Sounds like that makes this an easy decision, right?  Well, not exactly.  If you are a bargain hunter and are willing to put up with the trouble, you can find some really good deals on very fast tubular wheels.

Wheel cover vs. disc

Disc wheels are fast and can actually improve stability, so you should probably be using a disc.  However, they are pretty expensive, running as much as $1500 new, which seems like a lot for a wheel that you are unlikely to ride other than at races (lots of people are willing to rock their deep wheels all the time, but for some reason many fewer ride a disc all the time).  It turns out that you can buy a wheel cover for under $100 that will turn your training wheel into a disc.  A wheel covered wheel is aerodynamically pretty much equivalent to a "real" disc.  So why would you not do that?  It comes at the cost of some minor maintainability annoyance compared to a disc wheel.  The wheel cover needs to be installed carefully and if you want to take it on and off, you need to do that with some care.  If you are the type of person who does your own wrenching on your bike, this is not a problem.  If you have a shop do everything for you, this may be less appealing.  Especially because that $1500 new price tag can be more like <$500 for a lightly used disc.  At that point you are talking about a <$400 premium for ease of use and something that you may later be able to resell and the issue is less clear.

My Key Recommendations

1. Weight doesn't matter.
2. Always use a disc rear unless the rules prohibit it (e.g. Kona).  A disc cover is similar aerodynamically to a "real" disc and is cheap.  Even "real" discs can be had for <$500.
3. Go deep in front as long as you have a deeper rear (e.g. a disc).  A deeper rear wheel will be more stable and handle more reliably.
4. Match tire choice to your wheels.  Narrow wheels need narrow tires.  Make sure you can find fast tires/tubes for your choice of wheels.  No point getting aero wheels and throwing away the advantages with butyl tubes and high Crr tires.
5. Go used over new. Tubular are annoying, but are cheap used and can be good bang for the buck.

Example "Good" Choices

• Budget constrained: Existing rear wheel with a wheel cover + a used deep front. Something like a Jet6/9 or Zipp 404/808 or H3 can be had relatively cheaply and provide good value.  Getting a previous generation (e.g. non Firecrest Zipp's or the non SCT Jets) can easily make this a sub $500 setup that will be close to as fast as a the best possible expensive setup.  I don't have experience dealing with a disc cover myself, but there seem to be both positive and negative experiences.
• Best in class aero: Hed Jet9 front, Hed Jet Disc rear.  ~$1500 used.  Aerodynamically top notch, durable, clincher, alu brake track.  Note that a Zipp FC 808 front and Zipp disc are aerodynamically similar, with the main difference being carbon brake track.
• Budget constrained new: Flo90+Flo disc.  ~$1100 if you can get in on one of their orders.  I don't have personal experience with them, but their story seems good.  
• Kona bound: Jet6 front/Jet9 rear or Zipp 404 front/Zip 808 rear + wheel cover.  Race all the non-Kona races with your disc cover and use the wheels without the cover at Kona.  Of course you could also just buy multiple sets of wheels :)
• Totally tubular: Lots of great used options if tubular doesn't bother you.  I'm selling my own H3 front+disc for almost nothing and they are as fast as you will find.  On the slowtwitch classifieds forum, tubular wheels (e.g. Zipp 808s) regularly languish waiting for offers while equivalent clincher's get snatched up almost instantly.

What do I Own

I currently have a 2012 Jet9/Jet disc that I purchased used and am very happy with their performance.  They are very fast, stable in the wind, seem durable and have been very easy to use (e.g. clincher with aluminum rims).  I feel like they are compromise free wheels apart from cost.  My first set of race wheels was a pair of Hed3 carbon tubulars.  They are really cool and fast wheels (I love the way they look), but they definitely had more compromises than my current wheels.  I had to learn how to glue tubulars and worry about changing a tubular during a race (which fortunately never happened to me and can be helped by pre-treating with sealant).  The carbon brake surface required special brake pads and while fine is not as good as alu.  They also felt noticeably different than shallow rims in the wind; I found that they were predictable but took a little getting used to.  My "second" set of wheels was when I bought a rear tubular disc to use instead of the H3 rear.  That was a very incremental improvement; a disc is slightly faster than the H3 rear, and it improves the overall handling a bit.  On the plus side, these wheels were much less expensive than my current wheels and just as fast.  An H3+disc is typically the choice of guys like Bradley Wiggins and Chris Froome, while the Jet9/Jet disc is typically used by the likes of Tony Martin, so clearly either set is pretty fast!

2013 Half Full Triathlon: Relay Bike Race Report

I had already discovered that triathlons are pretty fun when you only do two of the three disciplines; I can't run but have done lots of relays where I swam and biked.  Yesterday I found out that just doing one leg might be even better.  For the first time at a triathlon I was signed up to just do the bike leg of a relay thanks to an invite from the AFC list searching for a biker. 

Due to the way the relay came together, I met my teammates for the first time race morning.  They both seemed really nice and not surprisingly there was a bit of gentle probing about whether we would be competitive or not.  No one was taking it too seriously, but it would be fun to place and seemed possible.  I thought our biggest competition was likely to come from the relay parked next to ours that had a super nice bike (Scott Plazma w/ full DI2, Zipp disc, etc) and a biker that had recently done well at Savageman and was prepping for IM Florida.  I also saw my triathlete pro buddy Suzzy Serpico who was doing the run for a relay as a quasi-training day (also getting ready for IM Florida) and we assumed their team would be fast too.  So at the start, we mentally slotted our team as contending for third place.

One reason I hadn't already signed up to do Half Full by the time I got the relay invite was that last year was cold and a bit miserable.  I wasn't sure I wanted to go through that again.  It turned out that this year couldn't have been more different.  From my perspective the weather was perfect at about 70 degrees and mostly sunny for my ride (it was probably a bit hot for our runner).  I remember last year wearing a pretty heavy jacket, knit hat and gloves as I setup my gear in the morning.  This year I was in light summer clothes.  With just my bike to setup, it was pretty relaxed as I just put on a water bottle, checked tire pressure and was all set to go.  We had a bit of a wait as our team's starting wave was last, but it seemed to go fairly quickly and soon enough our swimmer was in the water and we were walking back to transition to get ready to go

As we were waiting, I got a nice little surprise and saw my family (including our new puppy) come up to the edge of transition to say hello.  The one weird part of the relay was the wait.  Even though our swimmer was pretty much spot on for her predicted time, the waiting was a little nerve-racking.  Our transition went fine and I was relieved to finally get on the road.  I was also excited by how good I felt at the beginning.  Normally in a triathlon at this point I have just swam pretty hard and trying to bike after feels weird and difficult.  This was totally different; if anything I had to restrain myself since I knew it was a long hard 53 miles ahead of me (the course is advertised as 56, but is actually 53). 

The only thing that seemed to be wrong was that my power meter wasn't registering.  I looked down and noticed that the little magnet on the frame had gotten jostled to a different position and so it wasn't picking up.  So much for the test ride pre-checkin where everything worked perfectly!  This wasn't a huge tragedy, but did mean that I would need to pace myself by feel instead of by checking my watts.  The super nice bike guy had left a minute or two before I did, so I was pretty surprised to pass by him on the first climb up Homewood road less than 10 minutes into the ride.  I hoped I wasn't going out too hard and feared that he might pass back later.  I had the first sign that I was going faster than expected at the 10 mile point.  I had told my wife my guess at splits at that point on the course since you pass it four times and would thus be a good place to try to watch.  I had told her to expect me the first time at about :30.  I hit it at about :25.  I still felt in control of my pace, so I chose not to adjust my effort, just keeping it steady and comfortable.  The first lap of the course was really fun; there were tons of riders for both the half distance and the simultaneous Olympic distance on the course.  I find seeing, passing and routing for so many riders to be a blast.  I finished the first lap and the half way point, looked at my time and was shocked to see 1:07.  I had told my team mates to expect about 2:30 since a previous year on this course I had done 2:29 or so.  In transition, one volunteer came up to me and seeing my full on serious looking kit (awesome AFC skin suit, aero helmet, etc) jokingly said, "What are you going to do, a 2:15?"  I laughed that off and said "Not on this course!".  Naturally at the halfway point I'm starting to wonder if 2:15 might actually be realistic.  At that point I was also worried that I might have massively screwed up my pacing.  I felt fine, but it didn't seem realistic. 

On the second lap I spent a little extra time at the crest of each climb making sure to drink to hopefully avoid cramping or bonking.  The field also got a lot sparser, which sapped the fun and motivation a bit.  Almost all of the Oly riders were off the course by that point and I was starting to reach the front of the field of the Half race.  Fortunately, each time I thought that I had been solo for a long time, I would catch another glimpse of a rider up the road and concentrate on trying to catch them.  I managed to maintain a pretty similar pace for the second lap and with about 10 miles left to go, I was pretty sure I was going to be able to maintain the effort.  Naturally I was mentally calculating just what I needed to do to hit 2:15 and thought it looked borderline possible.  After a final hard effort down Rt 108, I turned into the finish and saw my bike computer reading 2:15:xx and an average speed just under 24 mph.  I realized I was going to potentially surprise my runner quite a bit, so came into transition screaming pretty loudly hoping to get her attention.  After a slight delay she came up, grabbed the timing chip from my leg and ran off.  I was happy to see that I was the first relay biker in to transition and the waiting began to see how big a lead we had.  About 10 minutes after I came in, the second team arrived, so we were predicting it might be quite close for first place.

I'm not quite sure what to attribute my unexpected time.  I usually am able to predict my time pretty accurately, but off by 15 minutes seemed huge.  It certainly helped to not have to swim first.  It also helped that the weather conditions were ideal.  I also have spent the summer doing significantly more volume riding (at the expense of not swimming).  I didn't feel faster during that time, but this may have been the payoff of that increased volume.  Or maybe it was the new AFC skin suit :)

After my leg of the race, I chatted with our swimmer for a bit and then met up with my family and another family friend who did the Oly race as his first triathlon.  I walked my kids back to their car, returned to the finish line and then when my team's runner finished (at almost exactly her predicted time) we ran in to the finish as a team.  After finishing, we checked the results and at least at the time it looked like we ended up first of the 21 relays.  Due to other commitments (two kid soccer games), I wasn't able to stick around for the official results and the award ceremony.  Hopefully those initial results held up and we ended up winning.  Regardless of the overall result, I had a great race and really enjoyed myself.  I just hope that if I race again next year the conditions are this nice.

For the Strava nerds, here is the activity: http://www.strava.com/activities/87349390

Highway to Heaven 2013

Last Saturday I did my first race since June, competing in the Highway to Heaven hill climb.  This race is a .8 mile time trial up Illchester road; one of the steepest climbs in the area.  That description makes it sound easy; it is not.  I find I'm as nervous about this race and the pain required to do well as any race I've ever done.  I signed up to race twice, which made me even more nervous.  I raced once as a Cat 5 (the most novice class of bike racer) and once as 35+ (because I'm getting oldish).  I managed to place both times, taking first place in Cat 5 and third place in 35+, getting myself a couple of medals (which my kids love to play with), a nice little bag of goodies and even a small cash prize!

Cat 5: Attempt #1

There isn't a long story to tell about a race that took just a bit over 4 minutes, but there is at least a little story.  A lot of my AFC teammates do Illchester almost weekly as part of a group ride and know the hill well.  I can't usually make that group ride and have only been up Illy a few times this year.  I'm giving that as context for the excuse of poorly pacing my first race.  As you can see in the picture above, you get lined up on the starter block and then off you go.  I went hard up the first steep section and maintained a fairly high effort for the first couple of minutes.  Then the effect of that hard effort started to hit and I struggled to keep going hard.  Looking at my power numbers after, I set a two minute power best for that first two minutes, so it is no surprise I struggled afterward.  The climb has a slight respite toward the end; a flat section before a final uphill section.  It would have been nice to go fast on that section, but I just didn't have the legs for it.  I stood to give one more effort up the last bit of hill, crossed the finish and then found a patch of grass to lie down and recover.  Looking at my Garmin on the way across the finish, I thought I had done it in 4:15ish, but it was 4:18 on the official clock.  I assume the three seconds was the time it took my Garmin to auto-start.  That was a personal best time, but I was a bit disappointed.  I had a reach goal of getting a bit closer to 4 minutes flat.  In the end, my time was enough to win Cat 5.  That isn't necessarily a reflection of it being an amazing time as much as that not that many people signed up for Cat 5.  It was actually pretty hard to find on the sign up page; many guys ended up signing up for Cat 4 at least partially because it stood out better on the sign up page.

35+: Attempt #2

The week before the race, a teammate pointed out that there was only one entry in 35+, so anyone who signed up had a great chance to podium.  I double checked that I was allowed to sign up for 35+ (in group races they don't allow Cat 5s because we are dangerous), and signed up to find that there were actually 6 guys by the time I signed up.  Still, that seemed like ok odds.  How hard could it be to race twice?  I was having second thoughts after my first attempt.

I had a bit over an hour to recuperate between races.  After spending some time chatting with team mates and friends, doing the Cat 5 award ceremony (oops, no picture!), I went back down the hill and did a short warmup ride to try to see how I felt.  I definitely didn't feel fresh; that first effort had taken a lot out of me.  I revised my plan for the second attempt; I would try to pace it much more evenly, taking the first steep section far easier than my first try.  As I lined up for my second try, I hoped that my legs would wake up a bit once I got going.  Fortunately, they did.  I managed to pace things much better the second time; while it was still hard, it wasn't excruciating like the first time.  In the end, I managed to finish in 4:21, just three seconds slower than my first attempt and slightly frustratingly, only one second behind second place.  Again, it is worth noting that coming in 3rd was cool, but had everything to do with it being a limited field.

 

Awesome Video

A friend's blog post had this awesome video from the race.  I'm featured toward the beginning, showing what it looks like to start the race.

 

Musings 
I don't usually get philosophical during my blog posts, but something about this type of race creates a strange and raw mix of emotions.  During and after the race, I felt so many emotions. The euphoria of feeling strong at the start.  The fear of the pain that I knew going my hardest would create.  The doubt and uncertainty about whether I had really given my best effort and preparation; you find yourself wondering if you couldn't have just gritted through it a bit more or done a few more intervals in the weeks leading to the race. Pride that I place well.  Humble when I realize that friends managed to go an amazing 25% faster than I did!  Embarrassment that I might not have lived up to my own and my friends' expectations.  Relief that it was over.  Most activities in my day to day life don't have the ability to generate so many and such strong emotions.  I guess that is why doing this type of race is worth it.

Credits
I foolishly didn't have any photos taken with my own camera, so I'm grateful to NoFilm Photography for the pictures and video that make this post a bit less boring. 

2103 Celebrating Heroes Triathlon: 3rd Place Relay

Yesterday my wife and I raced in the 2013 Celebrating Heroes triathlon as a relay team, placing as the third overall relay team.  As we have done in previous years, I did the swim and bike and she ran.  This was a really fun local race for us; it is really close to home, it is well organized, and we both went into it with a relaxed attitude.  Also, as a shorter distance sprint triathlon, there is less to worry about logistically; our kids wouldn't grow as bored

Race Morning

I had packed up the car with my stuff the night before, so all I had to do on race morning was wake up at 5:45, get in the car and drive the couple of minutes to the race and walk through the park to transition.  By this point I have my transition setup down  and can do it fast and on auto-pilot.  I had almost forgotten how great it is to do a non-wetsuit race, it is so much simpler not having to carry in one more bag with the wetsuit, timing when to put it on and walking around in it (mine is great in the water, but isn't so fun to wear on land). As I setup, I saw a friendly face from my masters swimming; she was doing the swim leg of a relay.  I think I was in a bit of zombie pre-coffee mode and in retrospect was probably not at my friendliest.  Sorry!  I finished up my setup within about 15 minutes, grabbed my iced-coffee in a water bottle a powerbar and walked over to the swim start to eat my breakfast.  I was expecting to take under an hour total for my two legs, so nutrition and hydration weren't going to be a big deal, but I still needed my morning jolt of caffeine.

Swim (16:20)

I used to complain in my blogs that they always put my wave last.  I'm not sure if some race directors read my blog or it is just a coincidence, but in my last few races I've instead started in either one of the first few waves or at least in the middle.  For this race I was happy to get to swim with the majority of the men's field, including my normal age group.  Since relays or aquabike are usually put in some random spot, this was the first time I'd get to swim with my normal peer group.  It would mean a lot more jostling than usual, but also a nice opportunity to see some fast swimmers.  Right before entering the water, I had the pleasant surprise of seeing my wife and kids and taking a quick photo with them.

After my photo, I entered the water last in my wave to get ready to start, so I had to fight a bit to get a front position.  The start was definitely crowded and as expected it was slightly rough.  I felt a bit bad for my female swim friend who had to start with this huge crowd of guys, some of whom are not exactly polite about swimming over you, bumping you, etc.  I managed to escape the start without any issues and started looking for feet to follow.  I was a little surprised to see just how many people seemed to be going really fast, but reminded myself that a big fraction of all the fast swimmers in the race would be in this wave, so I shouldn't expect to be able to hang with the very front guys.  After two races in a row where I had found great feet to follow, I was getting pretty used to the idea of drafting for most of the swim.  But in this race I never really found someone who worked for me; a couple of times I drafted for a little while only to have the person slow down too much whenever they were sighting.  On the plus side, the faster swimmers made a nice splashing path that made following a good line around the course relatively easy.  So I just concentrated on doing my own pace and following as good a line as I could to avoid swimming any extra.  By the end, I had passed a lot of the wave ahead, and had passed a number of swimmers from my wave (you can tell by the cap color) who had presumably started out faster.

Looking at the results, I think I ended up around 17th overall for the swim, but got 2nd in the relay by a big margin.  There was a young woman relayer who I found out swam almost two minutes faster than I did and had close to the fastest time of everyone in the race!  That was an awesome performance.

T1 (1:29)

The other part I love about a non-wetsuit race is how easy it makes transition.  My entire transition consists of jogging to my bike, taking off my cap and goggles (while jogging), putting on my helmet (darn buckle took an extra second), and jogging with my bike to the bike start.  The only challenge in all this is that "jogging" for me is not a great idea; I have to take that very easy and accept that it is going to cost a little time.

Bike (39:33, 24.3 MPH)

I've done this race before and really liked the bike course, it follows a bunch of roads near my house that I regularly ride on.  However, I found out much to my surprise (should have read the race emails more carefully) the week before the race that they were using a different course this year.  It also goes on familiar roads, but in the opposite direction that I usually go on those roads.  While it isn't a huge deal, knowing the course well is a distinct advantage; you know how to pace various hills depending on whether you can recover on a downhill after, etc.  I did a little recon the Friday before the race and got at least a general idea of the course and what kind of a time I might expect to do.  I figured under 40 minutes was about right.

Unlike some races, I felt pretty good at the start of the bike.  I guess my swim fitness must be coming back a bit.  I managed to get my feet into my shoes within the first couple of minutes and was ready to go.  The most interesting thing to me about the bike leg was the progression of bikes I passed as the race went on.  During the early miles, I was mostly passing people on regular road bikes.  As the miles ticked on, the bike got progressively more fancy till by the end of the ride I was only seeing people on TT bikes with high end race wheels, etc.  I also had the fun of passing one of my local buddies on one of the steeper climbs on the course, giving plenty of time to give him my version of "the look" as I passed. Overall, this was a pretty fun course although I still think I like the old course better.  While there are not a lot of big climbs, there are a surprisingly large number of fast downhill sections; I think I hit 35+ mph half a dozen or more times on descents.  By the end of the ride, the course joined on to familiar territory and I knew based on my time to that point that I should beat my 40 minute goal time and just concentrated on keeping a good effort all the way into the finish.  

Looking at the results after the race, my bike split placed 4th overall, with the three overall race winners all beating my bike split time.  I recognized the name of each of those three guys from previous races and was by no means disappointed to be behind any of them.  Unlike some other longer races where it is quite unfair to compare my bike split against guys who do the whole race and are saving energy for the run, in a sprint these top guys can go very close to all out the entire time, making the comparison a bit more fair.

T2 (:27)

The bike to run relay transition was easy.  Transition was pretty empty when I got there, so it was easy to spot my wife waiting for me.  We handed off the timing chip and she ran off.  I was a bit disappointed to discover another bike already racked right next to mine; I had been hoping to give my wife a bit of a lead on the run.  After chatting with the young man who owned the bike, I realized he trained with one of my biking buddies, so at least we were losing to friends.  His relay partner was the woman who crushed the swim, and they had another fast young man doing their run, so I had no delusions that we were competing for anything other than 2nd place at that point.

Run/Kid Wrangling (33:41)

My wife brought my kids to the race, but obviously couldn't watch them while we transitioned.  A good friend who's husband was doing the race volunteered to watch our kids during the small window when my wife would wait for me in transition and before I could come out of transition to start watching them myself.  I was happy to not have to hunt for them when they showed up at the edge of the transition area and we exchanged hugs.  I quickly packed up my stuff and got changed into street clothes so that we could walk over to the finish line to cheer my wife at the finish.

We got to the finish in time to watch the top overall winners finish and as expected watched the first place relay team fly by.  There was then the slightly nervous wait as we watched for any other big numbers (the relays were all 3000+ numbers).  The kids whiled the time away playing at the edge of the lake.  Apart from worrying about where we placed, I was worried that my wife would hurt herself.  In the last race we did together, she hurt her knee and limped painfully to the finish.  I really didn't want to see that again.  I spotted her coming over the hill and immediately started trying to catch her on film and cheer her on.  Without realizing it at the time, I captured this great shot showing her being passed by the 2nd place relay team within sight of the finish line!  Much to my relief she did not re-injure herself, although she admitted she had to take it a bit easy to prevent her knee from hurting.  I suppose that may have cost us second place, but is a compromise I'm very relieved to hear she took!